Taking Advantage of Two-For-One Wednesdays

If you’ve talked to me anytime during the past month you’d know that the ski bug has bitten me hard.  I’ve skied more days this season than the past ten years combined, and my skills have gotten better with each outing.  Skiing is a lot of fun, and I am always looking forward to the next time I hit the slopes.  The only down side to all this is that ski trips can get expensive.  There’s lift tickets (which cost between $60-85 per person per day), ski rentals, and if we travel out of town, transportation and accommodation.   Our budget can only afford so many ski trips per season, so we have been trying to ski our local mountains in between these ski trips.

Last Wednesday we took the day off from work to ski at Mountain High.  It’s located in Wrightwood, about an hour and a half away from our place.  Every Wednesday they have a two-for one lift ticket promotion so we took advantage of the deal.

We normally don’t like to ski locally because it’s often crowded and icy.  I’ve been spoiled by trips to Mammoth and Park City, where there are enough trails to disperse the crowd, and enough elevation to bring in snow (as opposed to the man-made stuff).  I’m glad we decided to visit Mountain High because there weren’t many people around (the benefit of skiing during the middle of the week), and there’s been a lot of rain and snow in Southern California the past two weeks for a decent base.

Oh deer: Erin impersonating a reindeer on the mountain

Skiing Mountain High was fun.   We got a chance to ski both sides of the mountain (West and East), and got to ski all the runs on the East resort.  We got the most for our money, which amounted to $27 per person for the day.  Not bad for a day of skiing!

The only drawbacks were that the runs were short and not as challenging when compared to other resorts we’ve visited.  We usually like runs that last more than 20 minutes, and most of the runs lasted between 10 and 15.  As for the levels (i.e. beginning, intermediate, advanced, expert), the difficulty level assigned to each run is relative to the mountain so it depends on each resort.  We found that the black diamond (advanced) runs at Mountain High would be an intermediate at Mammoth or Park City, and the double black diamonds (expert) would be an advanced run at Mammoth or Park City.  Towards the middle of the day Rene and I got into our groove and decided to ski down Olympic Bowl, a double diamond run:

And we lived to tell the tale!

We called it quits around 3 pm, once it started to get cold and windy at the top of the mountain.  On our way home we stopped by Charlie Brown Farms, a great roadside store/restaurant at Pearblossom Highway.  They’re known for their wild game meat (venison, bison, ostrich, elk) and curiosities (House of Dolls, dinosaur statues).  We ordered an ostrich burger, date shake and homemade chips and washed it down with Coca-Cola from Mexico.  Did you know that Coca-Cola Mexico uses sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup?  It makes the soda taste lighter.   We also bought a mood ring, a knit hat, and date treats to take home with us.

All in all, it was a great day to spend in the snow, away from the office, before the President’s Day weekend.